These are the ordinary attachments of the world. Food is an attachment, and it becomes a greater attachment when somebody renounces sex.

 

In a monastery, in a Buddhist monastery, you renounce sex, you live the life of a celibate. When you renounce sex, your whole energy becomes more and more attached to food. This is a problem to be understood, because sex and food are the two deepest things in you.

 

If you are too much in sex, you will not bother much about food. But if you are not after sex, then the whole energy begins flowing towards food. Hence, all your sadhus -- those who have renounced sex -- will always be after food. Look at Hindu sadhus, Hindu sannyasins with big bellies. What has happened? Why these big-bellied Hindu sannyasins? They go on eating and eating and eating -- but this is a natural phenomenon; it has to be understood why this happens. They have renounced sex, so the energy that was moving towards sex, where can it move now?

 

And food and sex are basic. Food is more basic than sex, because you can live without sex but you cannot live without food. Living without sex is not a problem at all. And really, those who have lived with sex will find that it is easier to live without sex, because the other gets involved, and then the other also creates problems.

 

You are enough problem to yourself, and the other creates more. And when two persons live in a sexual life, it is not that the problems are doubled -- no, they are multiplied. It is not a simple addition, it is a multiplication.

 

So those who have lived with sex know well that sex creates more problems than it solves. But by the time you know, you are so much in it you cannot get out. This is the problem: experience comes through experience -- but then it is of no use, because you are already in it. And if you say this to somebody who is still out of it, he is not going to listen because he will say that it is very difficult to be alone, somebody else is needed to share. He does not know what is going to happen when he starts sharing. Because then you will start sharing the problems -- there is nothing else to share.

 

Food is more basic than sex. Food is needed from the first moment a child is born -- not sex. The child can live for fourteen years without any sex. But on the first day, the first moment, the first scream comes for food, because food is the base of your biological existence. Sex is not the base of your biological existence, sex is the base of the biological existence of the society -- not you. Without sex the society will disappear; you can live, but without sex you cannot reproduce, children will not be born, the society will disappear.

 

If all become brahmacharis, celibates, which is impossible, then there will be world peace, real peace, because there will be nobody left. It will be global suicide. But you can exist without sex, that is not much of a problem.

 

So whenever your energy which is moving towards sex is stopped, the same energy starts moving towards food. These are the basic things. Hindu sannyasins or others, they go on eating too much. So in every scripture -- Jaina, Buddhist, Hindu -- they have made rules for sannyasins not to eat too much. Why? -- because they have stopped sex, now they know that they will eat too much. So many rules have to be made to protect the sannyasin, otherwise he will become a food addict, he will be mad -- eating and eating and eating.

 

Eating can give you sexual pleasure, because the sex center and the mouth are both joined together. That's why a kiss is such a sexual thing. Otherwise, why...? And if you are passionately kissing somebody, immediately you will feel sex energy arising. Why? ... Because mouth and sex are so far apart! They are not, they are joined; they are the two poles of one energy.

 

So whenever you starve the sex pole the whole energy moves to the mouth, so you will have to eat more, chew gum, pan or something. Or, if nothing else, you will have to talk continuously, because by talking the mouth moves. That's why people go on talking continuously the whole day. Even the day is not enough; if you sit by their side during the night you will see they are talking. [....]

 

If you watch people, the whole night they are talking -- continuously. Their mouth is moving, they are making sounds and doing all sorts of things. If one pole of energy is stopped, then the other starts because the energy has to be released somehow. You cannot contain it. It is just like if you eat and stop defecation -- what will happen? You will have to vomit, there is no other way, because if you eat then the things have to be thrown out. If you eat, sex energy is created, then it has to be thrown out. If you don't use sex as an outlet, then some other outlet has to be found.

 

-Osho, “No Water, No Moon, #4“

 

 

 

 

Somewhere your sexual energy is not flowing as it should but that is not very abnormal because that has become the normal condition of humanity, mm? Nobody's sexual energy is flowing as it should, so it creates many problems.

 

If the sexual energy is flowing perfectly well then everything hums rightly, everything remains in accord. Then you are simply in tune, vibrating, and there is a kind of equilibrium. Once the sexual energy is getting stuck somewhere there are repercussions all over the body. And naturally they will come first in the head, because sex is one pole and the head is another pole -- it is a polarity.

 

That's why people who are too heady start losing track of their orgasmic qualities. People who are too heady forget about their sexual energies; they are neglected. If not repressed, they are neglected, otherwise they are repressed. They remain in their head, their whole joy is there; their whole body suffers and the head becomes like a dictator.

 

The society has emphasised sexual repression for this reason too, because if energies are repressed at the sex centre the head becomes powerful. These two centres are competitors: if sex is powerful, the head remains impotent; if the head becomes powerful, sex becomes impotent. These are like the two sides of your being -- and they are always in conflict.

 

So, the society wants the head because it can be used for many things; it is very useful and sex is very useless. It may make the person joyful but it has no social use. In fact a joyful person is too dangerous to the society, because he does not bother about the society, he does not listen to the ambitious goals that the society goes on proposing -- to earn more money, be successful, become a chief minister or a prime minister. A really sexually healthy person does not bother a bit about all this nonsense because he is so happy; why should he become a prime minister? For what? Nothing more can be added to him.

 

So sex has to be repressed, then all energies are moving in the head. That's what is happening: somewhere sex is still not flowing so more energy is moving in the head -- it creates a headache. But it is not much of a problem.

 

-Osho, “Far Beyond the Stars, #8“

 

 

 

If you repress sex, you have to repress all sensitivities. If you repress sex, you have repressed your eyes... you will not be able to see so clearly. No, it is not possible. This is my 'observation, that whenever people's sex energy is released, they don't need glasses. I have seen many people meditating, and suddenly their glasses disappear. They come to me and they ask what has happened. In fact there was nothing wrong with their eyes.

 

When you repress sex, you have to repress your eyes also, unknowingly, because the eyes are the first portals of sex. You see a beautiful woman -- you have to repress the eyes first. If you don't repress the eyes, then excitement will enter the body and you will start dreaming and fantasising, and sex will arise. To repress sex, you have to repress the eyes. To repress sex, you have to repress the ears, because if you listen very clearly, you will see that a woman's voice has a tremendous attraction. Everything is sexual, because man and woman are sexual beings.

 

When you repress sex and you touch somebody, you don't touch at all. Just a dead body touches... inside you withdraw yourself. The hand takes somebody else's hand, but you withdraw your energy. You are not there present in the hand... the hand is almost dead.

 

So when one starts meditating and energies start functioning, they will again start working together in a unison, a harmony... an orchestra of energies. Everything will come to its peak, and suddenly you will see that a great sexual desire is arising. Don't be surprised. This is a good indication that you are becoming alive again.

 

Sex is life. It is life energy, elan vital, libido -- whatsoever you call it. Once you give it total freedom, spontaneity, by and by you will see that without repressing it, it starts being transformed into a subtle understanding. But that is not repression. Your whole sensitivity remains the same, on the peak. You retain your clarity of eyes, clarity of thinking, clarity of every door of your being; everything remains clear and open. By and by sex starts being transformed into a higher plane. You become more creative. You start creating something -- a painting, a poetry, a music playing on the instrument or something.

 

This is not repression... this is expression.

 

Then sex disappears -- that's what brahmacharya is. The real celibacy... you become virgin again.

 

-Osho, “Be Realistic: Plan for a Miracle, #19“